What cannot end, if it never starts?

A Warhammer Fantasy Sphinx Project

Every hobby project has a spark, a single idea that refuses to let go. For me, it was the Sphinx.

A few models had been around for years, released for Tomb Kings in the form of the Necrosphinx, later carried into Age of Sigmar with what I call the High Elves, then sometime after that War-cry got a model. I had picked them all up and like so many side project, they had sat collecting dust in the garage. However, a good few weeks ago, I had painted the last of my Thousand Sons sat in the paint queue (I've since added more) and looks about to see what to have a crack at next.

You see, my random collection of Sphinx models had always presented one major challenge. How do I incorporate them into a single army? I had toyed with the idea of some Tzeentchian 40k army but the more I looked into Sphinxes in the Fantasy Battle universe (or rather the lack of them), the more I released what these custodians of time could represent. A rewind and reset of the End Times.

As much as I love that Warhammer Fantasy is back in the form of The Old World, there is still something that gnaws at me. Canonically, the End Times still happened. All that lore, all that world-building, undone in fire and silence. I wanted to find a way to unpick that ending, to create my own answer to Chaos’s victory.

And so, the Sphinx Project was born.

The Sphinxes in my vision are more than constructs of stone and bone. They are ancient guardians of time itself, stirring in the world’s final breath and turning it back, one cycle earlier. Their return is not conquest but correction, the chance to rewrite fate, to restore balance, and to ask the ultimate riddle: must the End Times always come?

This is also a painting and modelling journey. My first Sphinx is finally finished, rebuilt onto a proper fantasy base, patched with milliput, and painted as a centrepiece for an army that blends converted kits with custom lore. It was not an easy start, especially painting such a large model second-hand and fully assembled, but it was worth the challenge.

This blog will follow that journey. The lore of the Sphinxes. The models I paint and convert along the way, including, I think, High Elves that have thrown their lot in with guardians of time. And perhaps, a different ending for the Old World.

The riddle begins here.

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Prologue: The Eyes in the Dark

Somewhere at the end of time...

The world burned.

Ash drifted like snow across the battlefield, scorched remnants of banners, bones, men. The sky above was wrong, bleeding colourless fire, the stars smeared like oil across a cracked dome. The stench of the warp was overwhelming. Like rotten meat and burnt sugar. 

Karl Franz stood amidst the dying throes of his Empire. Ghal Maraz hung heavy in his hand, once a symbol of his dominion, not a relic of a bygone era. The Winds of Magic howled through tears in reality, bleeding into the world with unnatural force. The veil between realms was gone, torn like parchment in the hands of madmen.

His armour steamed with blood. His limbs ached beyond reason. The cries of men, once deafening, had become a dull undertone, the final notes of a song nearly forgotten.

He knew then: they had failed.

All the stories told. All the banners raised. All the years they believed meant something, ash. A world built on legends and sacrifice, undone not by courage, but by greed. In the absence of their creators, the ambitions of lesser men fanned the winds of destruction.

Flames roared higher, casting twisted shadows across his vision, and then...

Nothing.

A stillness so total it felt like blasphemy. The world, and himself, hung in stasis. The Moment Between Moments

He was suspended. No weight. No time. No breath. There was no battlefield beneath his feet. No Empire behind him. No Chaos before him. Only a cold, infinite dark and the distant spec of starlight. 

A purgatory of memory and sensation. Thought drifted like fog. His identity unraveled, then recoiled. He felt the presence before he saw it. Something watching him. Not with malice. Not with mercy. Just observation, total and ancient.

Judgement.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose. His skin bristled, as if touched by unseen fingers. His thoughts turned to prayers he could no longer remember. Something old stirred in the dark, older than Chaos. Older than gods. A stillness that was not peace, but order. Something vast and feline and unknowable curled around him in silence.

His chest tightened. His existence became unbearable, a paradox wound too tight.

He tried to scream. There was no breath. Then he saw eyes. Piercing. Immense. Reflecting stars that no longer existed. Set in a face like a mask, silver and lapis, sculpted and divine. Wings spread wide behind it, feathered, but made of light and shadow in equal measure. They formed a crescent shape that seemed both alien and familiar.

There was no sound. Only understanding. No name. Only recognition. The gaze of the Sphinx held him. Measured him and then, the darkness was swallowed by a flash of light.

Altdorf, Year 2518 of the Imperial Calendar

He awoke gasping, bolting upright, heart hammering like a war drum. His chambers were silent, save for his ragged breathing. The velvet sheets clung to sweat-drenched skin. Moonlight spilled through the stained-glass windows, soft and cold.

For a moment, he simply sat, disoriented, hollow, changed. Then he moved, urgently, instinctively, to the window.

The city lay before him. Intact. Quiet. The Reik flowed beneath moonlit bridges. Scribes lit lanterns in the university halls. Bell towers stood. Statues unbroken.

Altdorf lived. Just as he remembered it. Before…...Before?

He pressed a hand to the windowpane. It felt too real, too solid. As if the world itself was trying too hard to convince him of its truth. And still, something was missing. He tried to remember, truly remember, what had come before. But the memories scattered like ashes in a gale. Each time he reached for them, they tore like wet parchment. Slipping from his grasp.

Every waking moment, the truth of what had transpired eluded him, like the final details of a dream recalled too long after waking. There was the weight of something vast behind his eyes. A pressure. A silence. Something waiting to be remembered.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Flashes came: fire without heat. A silver mask. Eyes like dying stars. And then, nothing again.

He turned away from the window and rang the bellpull beside the bed. Eventually, the heavy oak door creaked open and a sleepy-faced servant shuffled in, half-dressed, rubbing his eyes.

“Y-your Majesty? Forgive me, I ”

Karl Franz waved him silent, studying the steward’s face.

Fetch the court physician. Tell them… I’ve had a dream.”

The boy bowed and disappeared into the hall.

Karl Franz remained motionless, staring at the doorway long after it had closed. He remembered nothing of his death. Nothing of the nightmare. But the ache remained. A pressure in the bones. A feeling that something ancient had touched him. Measured him. Returned him.

And far above the Reik, on a rooftop where no shadow should fall,  a Sphinx watched.

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This is my first painted Sphinx for Warhammer Fantasy, though the model itself is from Age of Sigmar. Like most of my AoS purchases, it’s been repurposed into something that fits the Old World.

The biggest obstacle was fitting the model onto a proper fantasy base. That meant cutting down the big scenic base it came with and rebuilding the missing section with milliput. Turned out better than I expected!

Painting a centrepiece like this takes time, but the hardest part wasn’t the paintjob, it was holding the thing. In general, I find the closer you can hold to the area you’re painting, the less it wobbles around. Holding a model this size by the base just doesn’t cut it. These days I paint in sections and assemble later, but since I bought this second-hand, I didn’t have that luxury.

All in all, I’m really pleased with how it turned out. One down… and many more riddles yet to come.